


the ribs of a broken umbrella

by ennta



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Underage, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:47:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennta/pseuds/ennta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They'll mock and they'll tease," Renly had murmured, his brow furrowed, his hands a welcome distraction, "and you're a proud thing, Loras. I won't ask you for anything that will shame you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ribs of a broken umbrella

  
*******

As the sun slips off beneath the waves, the slide of steel on steel and the curses of friendly combatants fade down to whispers in the training yard, whispers that crackle like the heat lightning on the horizon, whispers just loud enough for Loras to hear as he cleans his melee equipment off for the evening:

"C'mon now, we all know Tyrell does for free what most whores charge double for!"

A burst of laughter, then, from one of the squires: laughter loud and open as only a young boy's derision can be.

The lure hits and hooks someplace deep behind Loras's rib cage. He swallows to displace it, to reduce it to a scar, a callous; maybe the next barb won't catch.

"Perhaps our lord still hopes to find a cunt between Tyrell's legs!" This taunt rings louder still, the lilting hint of a question to it as it tumbles from an older knight's mouth. Loras imagines they are watching him, waiting for his temper to spill over like high tide. "He still looks enough like a maid. Think there's been a mistake, and that fat old flower sent his daughter to squire instead of his son?"

Loras grits his teeth hard enough that he sees spots in the black at the corners of his eyes. His hands have gone to fists, his shoulders tense and ready, but he keeps his back to the other men, because after the first round of accusations began to fly a year before, Renly had sat him down and stroked his hair and made him promise not to let the japes and jibes of his fellow squires and soldiers get the better of him.

"They'll mock and they'll tease," Renly had murmured, his brow furrowed, his hands a welcome distraction, "and you're a proud thing, Loras. I won't ask you for anything that will shame you."

Loras stands as the last light leaves the courtyard, imagining the roses he will plant across that lowly squire's torso on the morrow, roses brought up to bloom the color of the Stormlands sky where Loras's morning star will catch the boy across the ribs.

Such delicate bones, the ribs, and yet how easily hooks elude them for the soft flesh beneath, and weapons break them into chalk dust.

*******

When Loras slips away to Renly's chambers, he finds Renly in silhouette against a large window, staring out into the sudden squall that has risen on the waves in the sun's absence. Loras locks the heavy door behind him, the reassuring weight of it barring him from the rest of the castle, and strides closer to Renly, removing his worn leather gloves and placing them on the edge of Renly's ornately-carved writing desk.

"I'd think you'd have tired of storms by now," Loras sighs, and Renly's smile unfurls across his handsome face as he turns. His long legs carry him to meet Loras in the middle of the bedchamber, but Renly doesn't speak, only reaches out, sliding his hands up Loras's neck, into his hair, cradling his head in long, careful fingers as he tilts Loras close for a kiss. Loras still has to crane his neck to meet Renly's mouth, but there is such safety in Renly's sure, broad form that he can't help but sway up against Renly's chest.

Renly untangles one hand from Loras's dark curls and slides it purposefully down Loras's side to splay across the small of his back and tug him even closer. Thunder echoes over the waves,  into the chamber, and something inside Loras surges to match it. He grips the front of Renly's doublet in tight fists, opens his mouth to take their kisses from soft and meandering to something deeper, something darker, something that only lurks in the heat of summer storms and the black of midnight skies.

There is so much Loras wants of the world:

He wants for those who see him to admire his grace, his confidence, his skills in combat; wants crowds of smallfolk to cheer for him, wants women to swoon at his smile and men to look on him, brows dark with envy. He wants all of this, has wanted all of this, since he could understand the songs his nursemaid sang to him, and yet in the humid, breathless silence between his body and Renly's, he wants nothing more than to toss his ambitions to the angry sea below.

Loras fumbles to unlace Renly's doublet, the rich green fabric twisting in his hands as he pushes it off Renly's shoulders. Distantly, he hears Renly chuckle, a thrum that vibrates from Loras's lips down through his skin to his stomach as he undoes Renly's undershirt and discards it with the doublet. His fingers shake, just a little, just enough that Renly breaks the kiss to rest his forehead against Loras's.

"Something's troubling you," Renly whispers.

There is a moment where lightning sparks across the sky, and another moment, quiet, as the world braces for reaction.

"Nothing's troubling me," Loras tries to sneer. His voice has gone hoarse even as his head has cleared, and he reaches down to work at the laces of Renly's breeches. His hands aren't trembling anymore.

Then, thunder; a second later, a downpour that echoes off the great stone walls of Storm's End, and Loras drops to his knees, mouthing at Renly's cock through his smallclothes, desperate to have him, to be the only one allowed to have him like this.

"Loras," Renly murmurs, his voice barely audible over the rain, and his hands tangle back into Loras's curls, tugging gently as Loras slides Renly's smallclothes down and off and leans in to lick a hot path down past Renly's navel. Loras brings Renly's thick cock to his lips, stretches his mouth around it, then stops, his fingers digging into the back of Renly's thighs as he braces himself.

The night exhales in a fresh swell of rain, a louder gust of wind. Loras raises his eyes to meet Renly's, savors the way Renly's jaw has gone soft and slack, his blue eyes glassy with pleasure and something more, something that stakes a claim on Loras's heart more surely than any mockery ever has.

Loras moves in time with the cracks of thunder, the waves against the ramparts crashing to the sound of his heart; he sucks slowly when the wind subsides, swallows desperately when it rages, and Renly, Renly who so rarely takes anything seriously, begs him to take more, to move his head faster, and his voice cracks around moans and pleas and half-formed declarations of love.

There's a tipping point, somewhere in the tempest, and the lightning crackles like the flames in the great stone fireplace, fast and sudden and everywhere at once, and Loras surges forward, feeling Renly's cock inside him from lips to throat, and there's something wild and wanton and desperately _right_ about the way Loras is pressing the hot skin of Renly's cock between the curl of his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He touches his nose to the dark curls at the base of Renly's cock and licks, swallows, forgets how to breathe as Renly jerks and spills inside him.

Loras sinks back onto his haunches, distantly surprised to find that his own breeches are sticky, that he has managed to bring himself off without so much as Renly's hand for help. He looks up, into wide worshipful blue eyes, and then Renly slides to his knees so he can pull Loras forward into another kiss.

"What did I do," Renly hums, catching Loras's bottom lip with his teeth, seemingly oblivious to the taste of his own seed in Loras's mouth, "to deserve someone so wonderful as you?"

Those are the words that calm the seas, that stop the storm; Loras feels himself relax as his release catches up to him, as he leans into Renly's arms and lets Renly's palms roam his back. This is all the adoration he needs, Renly's eager hands and mouth in this bedchamber lit by braziers and candlelight, this echoing room damp with the smells of sweat and sex and the sea. If the smallfolk never cheer him on, Renly's words always will; for every bit of laughter at Loras's sake, Renly will chuckle hushed praise against his throat; and for every dark bloom of blood Loras beats beneath the flesh of those who doubt him, he will kiss another bloom, lovelier and deeper, into Renly's warm skin.

Such a brave thing, the heart, to sit behind the ribs, to love and wait while cradled in a chalk-dust cage.

*******

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bell X1's "The Ribs of a Broken Umbrella." Visit me on Tumblr at [in-static-pallor](http://in-static-pallor.tumblr.com/) for more Renly/Loras + House Tyrell fun.


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